


Forever In Vain

by poisontaster



Series: Winsister [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Neglect, Demonic Possession, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Sibling Incest, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-05
Updated: 2008-03-05
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:05:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2189337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>So now it's just Dean to remember.</em> The origin of Addison Gloria Winchester.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever In Vain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nilchance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilchance/gifts).



When she was little and less concerned with her coolness, Addie once dubbed Dean "The Rememberer" of the family. And it's true. Other than John, he's the only one that knows the long, unbroken line of their life together.

And John is dead.

So now it's just Dean left to remember Mom. To remember Addie's mom, Starla.

They were pretty little then, so they were staying with Pastor Jim in Blue Earth and Dad had been gone long enough that Dean was starting to lose faith they'd ever see him again.

Not a lot. Just a little. A twinge. He totally knew the whole time that Dad was coming back.

And he was only six.

But when Dad came back, it was with a woman in tow, black eyed and spitting. She was tied with soaked, dripping ropes and chains scratched all over with weird symbols that made Dean's eyes hurt.

"Get back, Dean!" Dad shouted when Dean ran out to meet him, relieved, but mostly excited. Dad never brought his work home. So Dean stood out of the way while Dad dragged the woman—except she couldn't really be a woman, 'cause Dad had told him about Hitting Girls, which meant she was really a monster that just looked like a woman—up the stairs. Pastor Jim came running out on the porch, took one look at the girl-monster, and crossed himself before reaching to give Dad a hand.

"Go watch your brother!" Pastor Jim told Dean, and then they carried the monster woman down the basement and Dean didn't see them again for almost a whole day. Sammy was cranky and didn't want to eat and didn't want to play and Dean couldn't get Sammy to use the pot like a big boy, so Sammy peed himself and made a mess. Still, Dean did the best he could, because Dad and Pastor Jim were counting on him to hold stuff down while they were busy killing the monster and he couldn't keep bothering them with stupid stuff.

It got cold and Dean got hungry, but Sammy wouldn't settle or sleep. So, when the sun came creeping up and Dad came half-crawling up the basement stairs, Dean was holding Sammy on his lap in front of the fireplace, rocking him and telling him how Dad was gonna save the whole world. Dean was afraid to leave Sammy by himself with the monster in the house, so he grabbed Sammy's fat little hand and tugged him along to where Dad was making puking noises in the bathroom.

Dad looked pretty sick so Dean bit back his first words: _Was it gross? Is she dead? What happened?_ and just kind of stood there, not knowing what to say while Dad gulped water from the tap and raked it through his hair.

"Hey," Dad said when he straightened up and saw Dean for the first time. His smile was slow and kind of beat down at the edges, but it was there and he reached for Dean. Dean let go of Sammy's hand and made a clumsy sort of half-step forward and wrapped himself around his Dad's leg, pressing his face into the stained denim and breathing in that weird, familiar smell that would forever after remind him of hunting and his Dad.

"Is she dead?" Dean asked finally. "The monster-lady, is she dead? Did you kill her?"

Then there was a noise behind them and Dad got stiff. Dean realized he forgot all about Sammy and _he_ turned around and he saw Pastor Jim (which Dean thought was his whole name for the longest time, all mashed together, _Pastorjim_ ) come out from the stairs with the monster-lady hanging off his shoulder like she couldn't stand up on her own. She wasn't tied up anymore and she was quiet, bunched up like she was scared.

Dean shrank back against Dad's legs. A minute later, he felt horrible for forgetting Sammy all over again, out there in the hallway all by himself. "Sammy!"

Dad's hand fell down on Dean's shoulder, patted twice. "It's all right, Dean. It's okay." Dad bent and lifted Dean up. Dean was surprised. Dad hadn't picked him up like a little kid in a while. Dean slung his arm around Dad's neck, leaning into him and Dad hugged him hard. Dad was shaking. "It's over."

That was one of the very few times Dean would know his Dad to be dead-wrong about something, because it wasn't over. Not at all.

Really, it was just the beginning.

&&&

"I just… I just want you to think about what you're doing here, Dean. She's your sister. _Our_ sister."

"You think I forget that, Sammy? You think I _ever_ fucking forget that, even without you here to throw it in my face every few seconds?"

"I keep thinking you must've forgot. Because otherwise I don't know how you can look yourself in the face, knowing you're fucking our sister!"

&&&

While Dean ate the huge pile of pancakes Dad made for him, Dad and Pastor Jim told Dean to stay out of the room with the monster woman and to keep Sammy out too. Dean promised—and he meant it—but he had to walk past it every time he needed to pee and he could hear her on the other side of the door. He heard her crying.

After being up all night, Sammy was tuckered out and Dad put him to bed. He told Dean to go to bed too. Dean put on his pajamas and wet his toothbrush, but when it was time to climb under the covers, Dean stopped and thought about it for a while, Sammy in the crib in the corner and the monster-lady right across the hall.

Dad and Pastor Jim were in the kitchen talking. Dean couldn't hear what they were saying, just the rumble of their words, until Dad burst out, "I raped her, Jim! I flat out raped her and there's no excuse for that!"

Dad sounded mad and Dean didn't want to get caught and get Dad mad with _him_ , so he tiptoed down the hall to the room where Dad kept his stuff and got one of the guns where Dad hid them in his closet. He wanted a big one but Dad took him out shooting once—and boy, hadn't Mommy been mad—and he knew how hard they kicked, hard enough to knock a kid down. Even a big boy like him.

Dad had told Dean not to touch his guns, but with the monster lady _right across the hall_ from him and Sammy, Dean reckoned he wasn't taking any chances. He took a little gun small enough for his hand, with white, shiny sides like a seashell and hustled down the hall to his room again.

"No," Dad said, hitting the table hard enough that he made it rattle. "No. You don't get to give me absolution, Jim. I betrayed her. I betrayed Mary."

"John, you were under its spell!" Pastor Jim roared, sounding angrier than Dean'd ever heard him. "What makes you think you had any say in the matter?"

Dean's stomach hurt and he was worried about Sammy, but he also wanted to stay and listen. _Mary_ was the other name for Mommy and Dean didn't understand everything Dad and Pastor Jim said, but he could tell it was bad. He could tell it was important.

The thought of how mad Dad would be if he came out of the kitchen and saw Dean Disobeying Orders scared Dean pretty bad, though, 'specially since Dad was already PO'd.

"You're tired, John. You're not thinking straight."

"Dammit, Jim…"

Dean closed the door to his and Sammy's room, not wanting to hear his dad sounding like that anymore. He climbed up in the bed, careful of the gun, and then pulled the blanket up over his cold toes.

Dad had told him that guns were Serious Business and so Dean didn't play with it, just put it in his lap where he could reach it real easy-like and piled up all the pillows behind him so he could see the door. He didn't expect to sleep, though. Wouldn't have gotten in the bed at all, except Dad told him to. But he wasn't going to sleep. Somebody had to make sure the monster didn't get Sammy.

Sammy was just a little kid, after all.

&&&

"She's _twenty_ , Dean. Only twenty years old. She doesn't know what the fuck she wants!"

"Really, Sam? Really? Because you were fucking _eighteen_ when you left us and you were pretty goddamn sure about what it was you wanted!"

"It's always going to be about that, isn't it? That I left? I have a right to have a _life_ , Dean! And so does Addie. Have you even thought about that? About whether she wants something else? Something better?"

&&&

Dean woke up and there were a lot of voices: Dad and Pastor Jim and over them, a woman—the monster-lady, probably—screamed, "You shoulda let me die! Why didn't you just let me _die_?"

Dean jumped out of the bed and the gun fell out onto the floor. Dean froze for a second, but the safety was still on and there wasn't anyone to see. He scooped it up and went to Sammy's crib. Sammy was too big for the crib, really, but Dad said there wasn't enough room in Dean's bed for the two of them, even though Dean said he could moosh over. Sammy was sitting up and gnawing on the side of his fist like it was a biscuit. When he saw Dean, Sammy grinned, showing off his round baby teeth and said, "Deeeeen."

Dean smiled back. It was hard not to when Sammy looked so happy just to see him. Dean reached through the bars and Sammy grabbed Dean's finger and started chewing on that, running it across his sharp little teeth.

"You think I don't know? That I don't remember? I remember everything! It showed me…everything it did with my body, made me feel it, feel…how good it felt… _Christ_!"

Sammy made a face, letting go of Dean's finger and got to his feet, grabbing onto the crib's railing for support. "Out, Dean." For such a little kid, Sammy sounded a lot like Dad sometimes. Sammy rattled the bars. "I want out."

"Shhh." Dean put his finger to his lips but Sammy had made up his mind on something and there wasn't any convincing or telling him otherwise when he was like this.

Sammy's smile turned to a frown, his face got red and he shook the bars harder, voice getting louder. "Out, Deeen. Sammy wants out."

Dean was too little to take Sammy out himself, he knew that. Last time he tried—'cause Dad was drunk-sleeping and Pastor Jim was out—he'd managed to scrape Sam over the top and then dropped him. And then fell off the chair. Dad had been _really_ PO'd. Dean's scared to think of how Dad'd be now, when he was already mad.

Dean tried to shush Sammy, but Sammy didn't care about being quiet or not making Dad mad. He just got louder and angrier until Dean knew Dad was going to come looking in just a minute. Dean went and hid the gun under his pillow, 'cause he didn't want to get caught with it, uh-uh, no way, and then he climbed into the bed again, trying to look like he just woke up.

Dad came in and he still looked plenty mad, but he didn't yell. He just grabbed Sammy up out of the crib and then looked at Dean. His eyes were red, like he'd been crying (he didn't like Dean to know, but Dean could always tell). "Well," Dad said, rough and tired. He held out his other hand, the one not holding Sammy. "Since you're awake too, you might as well come along. I've got something to tell you boys."

Dean didn't get to hold his Dad's hand all that often anymore. Dad was busy a lot and Dean was a big boy and shouldn't need it so much. But he was glad to have Dad's big, warm hand around his as Dad took him and Sammy into the kitchen where Pastor Jim was sitting with the monster-lady. She was crying again, face in her hands, and she sounded so sad. So sad.

Like Dad, after Mommy died, in the bathroom or closed up in his room, back when they still had rooms. When they still had a house. Dean felt all twisted up, because he saw her before, he saw her black bug-monster eyes …but now he just felt bad for her. He was supposed to hate the monsters. It was monsters that killed Mommy.

Pastor Jim, on the other hand, just looked mad, face all jutted out from under his beard. "For God's sake, John…don't do this. They're just little kids."

Dean bristled at that. He wasn't a little kid. Dad said so all the time; Dean was a big boy now. Sammy, sure, but not Dean.

"Mind your business, Jim." Dad pointed a finger at Pastor Jim. "If they're going to grow up in this world, they need to know what's out there."

"Sammy's not even old enough to understand…"

"I _said_ let me handle it, Jim!"

Pastor Jim grumbled and glared but he didn't say anything else and again, Dean was struck how _awesome_ their dad was, that he could stare down somebody like Pastor Jim.

Dad crouched down, still holding Sammy, and put his free hand on Dean's shoulder. Dad still looked mad, but he looked sad too, like when he sat Dean down and told him it was just them boys now and that Dean was gonna have to be the best big brother ever. "Dean, I need you to listen real close now, 'cause this is important."

Dean nodded.

"Dean, this is Starla. She…" The monster-lady Starla gave out a sob and Dad's face got tight and so did his hand on Dean's shoulder. Then he seemed to notice that he was hurting Dean—even though Dean tried hard not to make a face—because he wiped his hand over his face, hard skin rasping over stubble. "You remember when I told you how you were going to need to look out for Sammy?"

Dean nodded again. "Yeah, Dad. I tried to keep him quiet, but…"

Dad shook his head. "I'm not worried about that, Dean. That's not the point. The point is, that I'm going to need you to work a little harder, son. We're all going to have to work a little harder." He looked over at Starla-monster and so did Dean. Her hands were no longer hiding her face and Dean could see her eyes weren't black anymore. They looked just like everybody's, even though they were kind of red and messed up and she had a black eye.

Dad looked back at Dean; two of his fingers on Dean's chin dragged Dean's face back so they were eye to eye. "Starla's going to be traveling with us for a while," Dad said. "She's going to have a baby."

"God damn you for this, John." Pastor Jim's voice shook like he was gonna cry but when Dean craned his eyes sideways, Pastor Jim just looked _seriously PO'd_. "It's not right to put this on his shoulders."

"He needs to learn," Dad said, not looking away from Dean. "Winchesters don't shirk their mistakes or their responsibilities."

"I hate this," Starla said, shaking her head. "Bastard. You should've let me die."

"Dad…" Dean tried not to squirm. "Why do we care about her baby?"

Dean regretted asking when he saw the look in Dad's eyes, but it was too late to take it back. "Because it's my baby too, Dean. And it's your little brother. Or sister."

&&&

"Addie _has_ a life! Just because it's not the one you would choose doesn't mean it's a bad one. I'm so fucking sick of you making it out like we have the worst life ever! We _save_ people, man! Do you know how many people would be dead if Dad hadn't saved them?"

"Dean, don't be…"

"No, Sam, you wanna get into this, let's get into this. _Do you know how many people our father has saved?_ "

"No, okay? I don't know."

"One hundred and nineteen."

"What, you count… Christ, of course you counted."

"And do you know how many me and Addie have saved, just on our own? Thirty-four, Sam. Thirty-four fucking people in this world who wouldn't have been here if me and Addie had fucked off to your mythical 'better life'. So don't you climb up on your moral high horse and tell me the life we live is shit."

"I didn't…! I didn't say that."

"You did, Sam. You say it all the time. Every fucking day."

&&&

Dad explained that Starla wasn't really a monster; that a monster got inside of her and did terrible things and Dad and Pastor Jim sucked it out of her and made it go away. That kind of worried Dean, because he didn't want the monster getting Sammy, but Dad and Pastor Jim seemed to think it was okay now and Dean still had the gun under his pillow, so he guessed it was fine.

Starla didn't seem to do much of anything. Just sat wherever anyone put her, like a big doll, staring at nothing, not talking to nobody. Pastor Jim was really unhappy about the whole thing and he and Dad fought a whole lot, real loud. Dad was even more unhappy and he stayed gone a lot and drank a lot and he stomped around Pastor Jim's like Godzilla. Sometimes—and Dean didn't really like to think about this part—when everyone else in the house was asleep and Dean was supposed to be too, Dean heard him crying. Horrible sounds that made Dean's stomach hurt to hear.

So he pretended he didn't.

&&&

"I just don't get it, Dean. I don't…I don't _understand_."

"What's to understand? Why do you have to _understand_ everything? Why can't you just…leave it alone?"

"Because it's fucked up! Because it's going to fuck you up _and_ Addie…"

"And you? Because that's what it's really about here, Sam, right? _You_ are upset. _You_ are freaked out. _You_ don't know how to deal with it…"

"With you fucking our sister? Damn straight!"

"Why do you keep acting like…like I'm raping her or something? Addie's a grown woman. She can make her own choices. She can choose her own life!"

"Then let her choose!"

&&&

Pretty soon, they went back on the road. Pastor Jim and Dad had one big blowout too many and Dad thundered that they were packing up and leaving _right then._ They put everything in the car so fast that they end up leaving Sammy's favorite toy, a busted-up My Little Pony that's lost half its hair from Sammy sucking and chewing on its head. Dean had been trying for _months_ to tell Sammy that it was a girl's toy, but Sammy loved the rat-sucked thing and he cried and whined—despite all Dean's attempts to keep him quiet—until Dad yelled and screamed at them both. Dean gave Sammy his favorite GI Joe—Snake Eyes—to gnaw on instead and stared out the window, his eyes and gut burning.

That's Dean's last clear memory for a while.

The rest of the next few months went by like one of those flip books from the cereal box, measured by the swelling moon of Starla's belly. They didn't stay in any one place long enough for the dust to settle on them. Sammy started to cry at the sight of the car and even Dean—who loved the Impala pretty much from birth—was pretty sick of it, the vinyl lines printed on his face, grinding into his tired skin, the seats always too warm, sticky with body heat and hard summer sunlight. It had been almost three years and it wasn't like Dean had ever _stopped_ missing his Mommy, but suddenly it was all sharp again, a big black hole that Dean could fall into forever.

He started to dream about her all the time—what she looked like, how she smelled. In his dreams, he tried to climb into her lap, balloon-like and huge with baby Sammy inside, but each time, she pushed him down and said, "Not now, Dean. There's not enough room."

Most of the time, Dean could hold it in, but sometimes, if Dad had yelled at him a lot, or if Sammy had been cranky all day, pulling Dean's hair and kicking… sometimes Dean woke up crying. It always made him feel squirmy and ashamed, because he was a big kid and he didn't even cry when Mommy _died_ so he didn't know why he should be crying over stupid little dreams…but sometimes he did, so tired he couldn't help it.

&&&

" _I am letting her choose!_ She chose this! She chose _me_! And that…that's the part that chaps your hide, isn't it Sam? That anyone would choose me, right? Fucked-up, broke-down Dean."

"I… _what?_ Dean, do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth? This isn't some skank we met in a bar and made a bet over. This is _Addie_. Our sister, Addie."

"I know that! But she was always your Addie. Addie-follows-Sam. And now she's mine. Just like in the beginning. And you hate it. You fucking hate it."

&&&

They were in Florida when Starla screamed and grabbed herself, blood soaking through her dress and seeping through her fingers. Dad took them to the house of someone named Lee, a friend of Dad's from The War. Lee's girlfriend, a Spanish lady named Concha, took one look at Starla and helped Lee carry her into a back room.

"Is she…?" And Dean couldn't say _dying_ , even about Starla, who he didn't even _like_. "Is she gonna be okay?"

Dad shook his head. Not like he was telling Dean _no_ , but more like he was trying not to hear Dean at all. He hadn't shaved and his beard was crazy and his fingers made this rasping noise when he rubbed them around and around his chin. "It's too soon," he said and it didn't sound like he was talking to Dean, either. "It's too damn soon."

An old woman came out of the back and talked to Dean and Sam in Spanish. She took them into the kitchen. Dean didn't want to go, didn't want to leave his Dad, but he didn't want to leave Sammy alone with strangers either. Dad didn't say anything and the lady was pulling on Dean's arm so Dean followed her. The lady put Dean in one chair and sat in another with Sammy in her lap. She fed them stuff Dean had never had before, rice with stuff in it and meat and mushy beans. It looked funny but it tasted good and Dean was hungry. Lately, Dean was always hungry and even Sammy seemed to like it and Sammy was one picky eater.

After, the old lady turned on the TV and put a big, furry blanket on the floor in front of it for Sammy and Dean to sit on. Dean didn't mean to fall asleep…but of course he did.

&&&

"Jealousy? You really think that my only objection to all of this is _jealousy_? Christ, Dean. She's not a…a pet. She's not a dog. She doesn't belong to you…or to me."

"Don't give me that Psych 101 bullshit, Sam. You know that's not what I meant."

"No, I think you hit something there. I think that's exactly what it is, Dean. You're so afraid of losing her that you'll fuck her to keep her from ever leaving."

"A pity fuck? You really think that's what me and Addie are about? You best not say that where she can hear you, man, or she'll cut your nuts off."

&&&

Dean woke up because Sammy was pulling on his hair and saying over and over, "Deeen, wake up. Wake up, Deeen."

He was in a strange bed…though they were all strange these days, and then, suddenly, just like Dean missed his Mommy, he missed his bed and his Batman bedspread and Superfriends sheets. He missed their house and his stuff and having toys like other kids.

"Get off me, Sammy." Dean pushed his brother away irritably.

Sammy made a face like he was thinking about crying and then apparently changed his mind. "Wanna play. You play with Sammy."

Dean sat up and shoved the covers away. "Where's Dad? Are you hungry?"

Sam shook his head. "Wanna play," he repeated. "Wanna play with Dean."

"Not right now, Sammy." Dean slid out of the bed. Someone had undressed him down to his underpants and tee shirt while he was sleeping; he looked around and saw his pants folded up on a chair nearby. The whole room was crowded with stuff; only the bed and a circle of space in the middle of the room were cleared out and the smell of dust burned Dean's nostrils. Dean put his jeans on fast, stomach aching with something that wasn't really hunger.

_(left us Dad left us Dad's gone left us alone)_

"Come on, Sammy," Dean said, holding out his hand and shaking it impatiently.

It was still real early and no one seemed to be up, doors tightly shut. Dad could be behind any one of them and Dean wanted to look, but Dad had told Dean before about snooping. In the living room, Starla was sitting on the couch staring at the TV with one hand curved around her still-big belly. Dean stopped, holding Sammy a little behind him. He didn't really like Starla, but she was familiar, at least. And he thought about the baby inside her, Dean's other little brother. Dean thought about himself at the head of a bunch of kids—brothers and sisters, even—like Spanky, from Our Gang. Dean's gang.

"Are you okay?" Dean felt like his voice sounded very loud in the quiet house. He cleared his throat. "Starla? Are you…is the baby?"

Starla didn't normally look at him or talk to him very much; it was hard for Dean not to shrink away when she turned her head and looked at him straight-on with her tired blue eyes. "Baby's fine, Dean. Your daddy'll get his kid, one way or 'nother."

Sammy was squirming, interested in something back down the hallway and Dean let him go, leaving him and Starla alone. Dean wished he had Dad's gun. Not that he thought Starla would hurt him; it had been months and if she was gonna hurt him, she probably would've by now. But he thought he'd feel bigger, stronger, smarter with it, more like his Dad.

"Do you miss it?" Dean asked suddenly. It felt like the words just kicked up out of him; his chest even kind of hurt, like when he and Dad had contests to see who could hold their breath longest. Starla just looked at him. "Your monster? Do you miss it?"

He didn't mean to make her cry—Dad said it was wrong to tease girls and pull their hair and make them cry—but Starla's eyes got big and wet and started to spill over anyway and Dean felt ashamed of himself. "Oh." Starla's breath caught on a sob. "Just 'bout every day."

"But. It was bad. Evil."

Starla nodded. "Yeah. It was." Her hand slid up from her belly to between her boobs. "But I got a hole now, where it used to be."

Dean thought about it. "One time, I got a tick in my leg. It was real fat and gross and my leg itched and my dad took a match and burned it and it came out and he squished it and there was blood _everywhere_." Dean had thought the whole thing was pretty cool, but girls had different ideas of cool than Dean did, usually. "I had a hole in my leg, where the tick's head used to be. It bled. Was it like that?"

Starla made a face like she didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry and her hand came up to cover her mouth. Her fingertips were all red and raw-looking, chewed down to the quick. "Yeah, Dean. It was a lot like that."

"But my dad saved you," he pointed out, because she seemed to have missed it.

"Hey, kiddo." Dean hadn't heard Dad come up behind him, but he got swept up all of a sudden in his dad's arms, legs swinging toward the ceiling. Dean laughed and twisted around so he could grab onto Dad's neck. Not gone after all. "Whatcha doin'?"

"I was just talking to Starla." Dean squirmed. It' wasn't that Dad said not to talk to Starla, but he felt weird about it, like maybe he still wasn't supposed to.

"Oh, yeah?" Dad turned his head to look at Starla. Starla was staring back and Dean had seen Dad fight with enough of his friends that he knew the look in Starla's eyes. Starla was mad. Starla looked so mad Dean hugged tight around his Dad's neck like he was going to protect Dad, instead of the other way around. "What're you talking about?"

"Nothing," Dean said quickly, but Dad was still looking at Starla, like he was waiting on an answer.

"Dean here was reminding me how you saved my life." Starla's voice was a grown-up voice, one of those things that sounded like something and meant something else. Dean didn't know what her voice meant.

Then Dad said something Dean _really_ didn't get. "Not so sure I did," Dad said, rumbly but soft.

Starla made that wanna-laugh, wanna-cry face again. "Yeah, well, I'm not either."

&&&

"I don't know what the hell you and Addie are. I don't think I wanna know."

"Why is it so hard for you to believe that we might feel something for each other, me and her?"

"Because it's not normal!"

"What the fuck did normal ever do for us anyway?"

&&&

Dad rented a house, not far from Lee and Concha's place, and got a job, leaving Starla to watch him and Sammy. Except Starla ended up sleeping most of the time and it was pretty much up to Dean to take care of Sammy 'til Dad got home. There were about a billion kids in the neighborhood and for once, Dad said it was okay to play with them as long as he kept his mouth shut and an eye on Sammy too. The kids teased him some about always bringing his little brother around, but after Dean fought with a couple of them, they shut up.

Starla kept on getting bigger. So did Sammy. So did Dean, for that matter, with Concha's mom feeding him all the time. Sammy got brown, Dean got burned and they all got bit up by the mosquitoes. It was the happiest Dean had felt since Mommy died.

In September, Dad made Dean start school. Dean hated it, bored and worried about Sammy while he was gone. But Dad wouldn't listen to any of Dean's arguments about why he should stay home and help out.

In October, Dean went Trick-or-Treating for the first time since before Mommy died. He went with Concha and her nephews Rey and Julian. Concha loaned him a leather jacket that Rey outgrew a couple years ago and nobody guessed what Dean was dressed up as, with his vial of salt and plastic gun, but Dean didn't really care. It was still awesome and he ate himself sick on chocolate and Smarties.

In November, the baby came. Concha and her mom—who told Dean to call her Abuela, even though he thought her name was something else—took Starla in Dad's room and shut the door while Dad and Lee drank beer in the kitchen.

Dean played cars with Sammy for a while. When Sammy got tired and fell asleep, he played by himself. Then, when he got bored with that—and curious about all the noise coming from Dad's room—Dean went to take a peek. Abuela spotted him right away, but instead of yelling at him, she beckoned him in and put her arms around him.

Starla was on the bed, dress pushed up and hollering and panting and making squeezy noises while Concha told her, "Push… Come on, _push_ …"

It was stinky and loud and really kind of gross.

It was also the _coolest thing Dean had ever seen in his life._

Concha _pulled_ the baby out of Starla and swabbed her finger through its mouth. Then she wiped its face and patted its back. The baby started _crying_ and Abuela was crying too, rocking Dean back and forth and _holy **crap**_ , that was his…

"It's a girl!"

…his _sister_ and she just came out of Starla's _body_.

"You want to cut the cord?" Concha asked him, looking over her shoulder at Dean and he didn't have any idea what she was talking about, but Abuela was pushing him forward and putting the pair of scissors in his hand and Dean did what he'd be doing for the rest of his life. He went with it.

And that was how Dean met her. Addison Gloria Winchester.

Addie.

&&&

"You came walking back into _our_ life, Sam, not the other way around."

"And it's always going to be about that, isn't it, Dean?"

"The point is, you don't get to decide. You don't get to tell us what to do. You wanna be 'the good guy', you go ahead. Feel fucking superior. You always do anyway."

"That's not true."

"But you leave me and Addie out of it. You shut the hell up about us. 'Cause we're not hurting nobody."

"You are, Dean. You really are. I can't believe you don't see it."

"Is this…? Is it like Addie said? You want…fuck, I don't even know what to call it. You want in?"

"Wh.. I… Addie said _what_!?"

&&&

Dean was supposed to be sleeping. He'd tried to sleep, but he kept waking up, all sparkly-tingly and excited. He had a sister. A _sister_. She was kind of red-faced and ugly, but Abuela said she'd grow out of it. And even if she didn't, Dean guessed it didn't matter either way. He could teach Addie how to fight and he'd hurt anybody who made fun of her.

A sister. A sister to take care of.

Awesome.

Dean knew Dad hadn't gone to bed; he could hear the sound of Dad's boots on the creaking old floors. He got out of bed anyway. His pajamas were getting too small; Dad'd had to cut the feet off a couple weeks ago. The pants rode up his mosquito bitten calves and Dean had to keep grabbing the crotch and pull it down when it got too high and tight. He tugged it down now and then went to the door, down the hall and into the kitchen, where Dad was sitting with a bottle of booze and Addie tucked in one arm like a football.

Dean could smell Dad from the doorway, the sweat-and-booze stink that meant Dad had been at it all day and the tired, red-eyed look that meant that he'd gone through mad and out the other side to sad.

Dean kinds of preferred mad to sad, because when Dad was mad, he was scary, but he was still _Dad_.

"Hi, Dad." Dean got the carton of milk and a glass from the fridge and dish-drainer respectively and sat across the table from his dad. Two dudes having a drink.

Dad's mouth curled up a little. "Couldn't sleep either, buddy?"

"Nah." Dean got on his knees to try and peek into the blanket wrapped around Addie. "She sleeping?"

"Finally." Dad sighed. "Starla… She won't feed her. Doesn't even want to touch her."

Dean concentrated on not spilling any milk as he poured it carefully into his glass. "I don’t think she wanted a baby very much."

"I don't think so either."

"Is Starla going to stay with us?" Dean wasn't sure how he felt about it, but Starla had been with them for a long time and she was Addie's mommy. He knew from school that sometimes moms took their kids and went away and no one ever saw them again.

"I don't know." Dad takes a big drink, right out of the bottle. That's bad. Dean gets yelled at for drinking out of the bottle.

"But Addie…she's ours, right? She's a Winchester, like us."

Dad smiled. "Yeah, kiddo. Addie's ours."

"Okay." Dean took a big sip of his milk. It was starting to taste a little funny, but it was okay for now and it was cold and he was drinking with his dad. "That's good," he added. "I can help. Like I help with Sammy."

"I know you will." Dad lifted up a little to reach across the table and ruffle Dean's hair. Dean hid his proud smile in his milk. At the movement, though, Addie hitched, gasped, and then started to cry. Dad cursed under his breath.

"Can you hold her while I make up some more formula?" Dad was clumsy getting up, almost dropping Addie. He kind of shoved the baby at Dean, who wrapped both arms around her, scared he was going to drop her instead. Even little as she was—and she was tiny—she was kind of hard to hold, squirmy and angry.

"Hey, Addie, hey." Dean felt very important, very grown up, getting to hold the baby this way. Mommy wouldn't let Dean hold Sammy when he was still this little, but Dean was a little kid then. "I'm your big brother. I'm Dean. I got to cut your numbilical."

"Thing is." Dad's voice came suddenly, scratchy-low, like he was talking to himself. "I know Starla didn't want this baby. But…what else was I s'posed to do? Just…just forget about it, let Starla kill her so's I could pretend it never happened?"

Dean dipped his finger in the milk and then stuck it between Addie's gums, rubbing over the toothless ridges gently. _Got to be gentle with babies, Dean._ Addie made a surprised grunt and stopped crying to suck busily at Dean's finger.

"It's not her fault. Addie. Starla…either one of them. S'not their fault. My fault. I wasn't…strong enough. I was weak."

Addie realized quickly that all the milk was gone and there wasn't any more coming. Her eyes opened and she huffed up breath to start crying again. Dean rewet his finger in the milk and trickled it into her mouth again before letting her gum the tip some more. He was trying not to hear Dad, but it wasn't like he could really help it, sitting right there.

"I. I love your mother so much…" Dad turned around and he _was_ talking to Dean now, crazy-eyed and slump-shouldered. "I love her so much. But when… I didn't know what else to do. But I don't know if it was the right thing. I don't know."

Dean didn't know what to say. Dad's look was holding him there like a weight on his chest and his shoulders. He kind of wished he'd never come out in the first place, except sometimes he felt like Dad needed it, when he got like this. Needed him.

Addie wiggled and Dean looked down at her again, arms closing tight to keep her from falling. "Well… We're a family, right? You 'n me and Sammy and Addie?" He looked up at Dad. "I like Addie. I don't want her to go away. Winchesters stick together. That's what you said."

Dad sighed, shaking the bottle of formula. "She's not going anywhere, Dean. She's our problem now and we don't walk away from our problems."

Dean knew this part. "We deal with them."

Dad nodded. "That we do."

&&&

"You're crazy. Both of you, fucking crazy."

"I told her it was crazy! But you're the one that kissed her."

"I. It was a mistake."

"Then what _do_ want, Sam? What the fuck do you want from us? You _left_ , man! You left. And you cut her heart out and took it with you…"

"I want. I want us to feel like a family again! Not like I'm some huge albatross you're carrying around until you can figure out how to get rid of me!"

"Sam, I…Jesus! You are so fucking stupid sometimes!"

&&&

Dad wanted to get back on the road right away. Abuela and Concha yelled at Dad a lot, saying Starla's wasn't ready and Addie was too little. Dean tried to tell them, but they didn't listen and then Dad started yelling back, louder and meaner, and then Dean and Dad were packing up the car while Concha held Addie and muttered dirty words in Spanish that she didn't think Dean knew.

Starla still wouldn't hold Addie. Wouldn't feed her, even when her shirt got all wet with milk. It was more than that, though, though Dean couldn't explain how. She was different after Addie was born. Like a ghost. Like Starla was somehow gone. She stopped talking at all unless it was Dad asking her something in the tight, ugly tone that meant _answer me right now_. Dad used that voice almost all the time now.

It was a couple weeks before Christmas when Dean and Sammy came down really sick with pneumonia. Dad decided they would stay with Bobby for a while. Dad and Bobby got into a big fight almost soon as they got there and Dad left. Left them there. For once, Dean was too sick to worry about it. Sometimes he only sorta woke up and thought Starla was there next to his bed, wiping his face down and rubbing Vick's on his chest, but when he woke up all the way, it was always to Bobby or no one at all.

Dad came back two days after Christmas with presents. Mostly new clothes, but he also gave Dean a bb gun and promised him that when Dean was better, he'd show him how to shoot.

Things…settled down. Dean's birthday came and went, marked only by a Suzy-Q that Dean swiped from the gas station. Seven years old. Seven and a big brother twice. Bobby taught Dean how to change Addie's diapers and how to heat up formula in a pan on the ancient stove. Dean taught Sammy how to pee like a big boy and how to play carefully with Addie without hurting her. Sam couldn't quite get the hang of Addie's name, calling her "Add-ee," but it made Addie laugh and make noises just the same. Starla spent most of her time in the chair by the window, looking out into the day, into the darkness.

"Starla?" Dean asked finally, when the snow started to melt into mud that stuck to Dean's shoes and had to be wiped off very carefully before he was allowed inside. "What're you looking for?"

Starla jerked, like she didn't even know Dean was there, even though Dean had been in the living room for a long time. She turned her head to look at Dean, sniffling with the cold she'd had since Dean and Sam came down sick. "Nothing. Just waiting."

"What for?"

Starla shrugged, loose armed and turned her face back toward the window. "Just waiting."

Dean didn't know what else to say or ask and it didn't seem much like Starla wanted to talk to him, so he shrugged too and started to turn away when Starla reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Dean. You…you love, Addie, don't you?"

"Yeah, 'course I do." He does. He barely could remember when Sammy was this small, this helpless. Mommy and Dad had taken care of him and Dean… Dean didn't even remember what he used to do, way back then. But Addie…she needed him. More than Sammy, even.

"You'd protect her? If you had to? If someone was going to hurt her?"

"Who would hurt Addie?" He was confused.

"It doesn't matter, Dean! Just…tell me you'll protect her, watch over her. Tell me you'll keep her safe."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, pulling against her grip on his arm. "Yeah, I would."

Starla let him go all at once and Dean fell down, scraping his elbows on the wood. He crawled backwards as Starla leaned her head against the glass, her face and hands hidden by her long, wavy hair. "Good. Good."

&&&

"You think you stopped being family just 'cause you left? You think the three of us just…what? Forgot about you? You wanted us gone, Sam, not the other way around."

"But now I'm back, okay? I just… I'm back. And I'm still a Winchester."

"Well… _yeah._ Who the fuck else would you be?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I don't even know you guys anymore."

&&&

The day before Addie turns six months old, Pastor Jim came up to Bobby's and the three of them—Dad, Bobby and Pastor Jim—painted little marks in henna all over Addie's body. They painted stuff on the floor, ceilings and walls, too and stunk up the house with smoke and incense and stuff. Addie cried and Dean wanted to go to her, but his job was to baby-sit Sammy and keep him from messing up the lines and to stay out of the way. The men said words over Addie, chanting, sort of like a lullaby but not. Starla hid in the corner by the fireplace with her hands over her ears, crying. Dean didn't think the guys even knew she was there. He didn't quite dare go to her, either.

But nothing happened. Whatever Dad was worried about…it didn't happen. And when it was all over, Dad was in the best mood Dean had seen in months, swinging Sammy and Dean around in circles and making faces at Addie until she laughs. After Sammy and Addie were in bed, Dad let Dean have a couple sips of his beer and sit with the guys while they talk. The beer made him sleepy and Dad carried him to bed. Dean put his face in Dad's neck and fell asleep like that before Dad even put him down on the mattress.

The next day, the snow came back. Weatherman said it was gonna be a storm, so Pastor Jim decided to go home, Dad went into town to get supplies in one of Bobby's trucks while Bobby put chains on the Impala and made sure the snow plow was running okay. Sammy was cranky and irritable, refusing to be soothed, refusing to play, screaming like a siren any time anyone tried to bring him to the front of the house, so finally, Dean just left him alone to play in the bedroom by himself because Addie was crying and it was only him and Sammy and Starla in the house. And Starla wouldn't touch Addie.

Dean's head hurt.

Dean knew something was wrong. Even before he got to the living room. He could _smell_ it, different than the smell of Mommy, but he still knew it was wrong. If anything, it sort of smelled like when Addie was born, raw and wet and kind of weird, like a sucked penny.

Addie kept on crying. It was loud, full-throated, rasping, like Addie knew. Like she thought no one was coming, that they were all gone. Dean knew the feeling, but he was a big kid and big kids didn't cry like that. That was just for _babies._

Dean didn't want to go in the living room. But Addie was in there, and he knew he had to, one foot dragging in front of the other. It was starting to snow already and the house was getting dark, shadows swooping up and cold falling down like a blanket. Under his long-john shirt, Dean felt goose-bumpy and sweaty at the same time.

Starla was sitting in her same chair, except now it was in the middle of the room, in the middle of the scuffed out paint and hex lines. Her head was thrown back, hair trailing behind her, and her mouth was open like she was screaming, but she wasn't screaming, she was _dead_. Dean knew she was dead, because all her blood was on the floor, spilled out of the huge, gaping cuts in her wrists and spread around her in a pool. The knife she did it with had fallen point down, stuck in the wood. And Addie…Addie was on the floor in the middle of it, covered in it, little red baby.

Dean didn't remember exactly what happened after that. Not exactly. He remembered the sprayer in the kitchen and holding Addie's mouth shut so she didn't get any blood in there. He remembered thinking Dad was going to be so mad at him, for making a mess. He remembered taking them both outside, holding Sammy's and trying to carry wet Addie, and how quiet they both were. And how Sammy's eyes were as big as saucers as they went past Starla's body. He remembered Starla's body.

It was cold outside and getting colder and the snow was already putting a hush on everything. They probably shouldn't have been outside but Dean didn't want them in the house. Not with Starla like that. _Take your brother and go outside. Now, Dean, go!_

It wasn't safe in the house. Not for little kids.

Dean went inside once more, running, and grabbed the blanket from the bed. He kept it from dragging in the blood and, outside, wrapped the three of them in it like a tent, like a cocoon holding them together tightly. "It's okay," he said, teeth chattering. "It's okay. Dad'll be back soon. He'll take care of it. And I'll take care of you."

"M'cold, Deeen." Sammy tried to crawl into Dean's lap with Addie but he didn't suggest they go back inside. Dean tried to hold onto both of them best he could, rocking, talking, trying to keep them warm until Dad could come back and fix everything.

He waited for their dad as it got dark.

&&&

"I don't know how else you want me to be, Sam. We're brothers, man. We're always gonna be brothers. We're always gonna be a family."

"Yeah…well, it doesn't feel like that right now."

"It will. Just give it time. Do you…? Do you remember Addie's mom at all?"

"Starla? Jesus, not really. Why?"

"Whatever you remember, Addie…she remembers even less. She never even got to know Starla."

"I know that. What has that got to do with anything?"

"Just…you, me and Dad…we're all she's ever had. Ever."

"I know that too, Dean. Why do you think I want something better for her? Why do you think I want her to have a life?"

"But she has a life. You might not like it, but she does. This is what she wants. And you and Addie…you're all the family I got."

"That goes both ways, Dean. I'm so tired of this, man. I'm so tired of fighting with both of you, just for the space to be here."

"I'm just saying love her, man. There's nothing I wouldn't do for her. It scares me some times, the stuff I'm willing to do. But it's you too, man. But not if it means I gotta choose. Don't ask me to do that."

"I don't want you to choose, Dean."

"What do you want?"

"I don't know. What do _you_ want? You doing this just for Addie or you doing this because you want to?"

"I just want all of us together. I want us to stop fighting. I want us to do the shit Dad taught us to do."

"Save people and kill shit?"

"Is there anything better?"

"Dean— I… A hundred and nineteen, huh?"

"And thirty-four, just me 'n Addie."

"How the fuck do you remember all that?"

"I don't know. It's what I do."

"Remember stuff?"

"Well…yeah."

"Then how is it you can never remember which socks are mine and which are yours, huh?"

"Because I remember the _important_ stuff, Sammy."

**Author's Note:**

> There endeth the story; here begins the ramble.
> 
> As I put the finishing touches on this fic, I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It's been somewhat excruciating to write, between my absentee muse, the difficulties of writing about demonic possession, demonic non-con, unwanted pregnancies, John's questionable decision-making and suicide all from a six/seven year old's POV and so many verb tense change-ups that I could be a MLB pitcher.
> 
> But, stripping away the structural issues, the _story_ is one I very much wanted to tell, though it's probably less titillating than others: the story of how Addie came to be. Like anything I write, Addie came about by accident, by me wanting to stretch myself into territory I'd never been before and see what comes of it. And, apparently, what comes of it is more stories. *laughs* But once I'd conceived of Addie (and with [](http://nilchance.livejournal.com/profile)[**nilchance**](http://nilchance.livejournal.com/) 's wonderful enabling) I had to figure out where Addie fit in all of this. The first step was in realizing that Addie could not be Mary's child.
> 
> If Addie was Mary's _and_ the youngest child, that meant that the demon would have had to have visited while Addie was still in her infancy, not Sam's and that would've shifted Addie into the Special Child role of the family and I didn't want to alter Sam that much or usurp that role from him. So Addie could not be Mary's.
> 
> The problem then became _well, whose child is she?_ I'm one of those rather die-hard John girls that doesn't necessarily believe that John was celibate for twenty-two years, but I don't believe John ever found a woman that took his mind off Mary. So that meant he either had a fling and had birth control issues (which I found unpalatable) or…something else happened. I chose something else.
> 
> I still wonder about choosing to tell all this from Dean's POV; I feel like there are certain small details that might have escaped the camera's lens simply because Dean was, at that point, too young to really understand the implications of what was going on. But two things motivated me to write it from Dean's viewpoint anyway; first of all, that Dean hasn't had much to say in the stories I've written so far and secondly, that Dean _is_ the only one left who knows what happened, or any approximation of it. John, Starla, and even Jim are all dead. Bobby probably knows some part of it, but not the whole. Not as much as Dean. And, in working out the dynamics of the Winchesters with a sister, the positioning and position of each Winchester has to be re-defined. And, true to the original, how they define themselves is largely in relation to each other.
> 
> Dean is no longer defined only by Sam; his role is less Sam's Big Brother and more THE Big Brother; his obligations run two ways. And I attempted to show that here, divided between the _then_ of Addie's birth and the _now_ of Sam wanting—needing—entrance back into the family circle. And, as I said at the start, I don't know how well I succeeded, or how I quite feel about this story, as a consequence. But I think it needed to be here, in the ongoing saga of Dean-Sam-and-Addie. Your foundation needs to be solid before you can build anything off of it.


End file.
